My Hair is From Choleria. The InStyler Brought It Back.

If you haven't noticed, I am growing my hair out from a Rihanna-like short cut to a long Emily Robinson-like long cut (I hope I don't get upset my hair isn't naturally wavy when I get there.) I blather about it constantly and am a wee bit obsessed with making it look fantastic during its awkward stages (I am actually not sure if I have gone through a non-awkward stage yet).

In my quest to have beautiful hair, I am trying a ton of products and styling tools to find out what works for me. I have found a flat iron that does a beautiful job, despite me being too uncoordinated to get the amazing results my stylist gives me.


(Super flat, courtesy of Bethany.)


But a flat iron isn't really something I am up for every day and I don't think I want super straight hair every single day. (I have a full face and feel like I can't pull off that look every single day.)

But I do have annoying hair. It is fairly straight on its own, which is handy. The top layers of my hair are shiny and pretty. The bottom layers of my hair are a different texture, and as my mother-in-law would say about things she doesn't like, are "from Choleria"*. In her mind, Choleria is a place where bad things come from. Ugly clothes, badly used makeup, icky interior decorating and things of a similar ilk, all come from the magically ugly land of Choleria.


Anyway. The underside of my hair is crinkly, rough and has a mind of it's own. While it isn't as textured as the hair shown in the infomercials for the InStyler, I was really curious to know if the InStyler could whip the underside of my hair into shape without making it flat-flat-flat, like my flat iron.

If you haven't been mesmerized by the infomercials, the InStyler is a heated styling tool that has three heat settings, which are designed to work on different types of hair. It has a heated barrel that rotates in one direction and a brush that smooths the hair and adds a ton of shine. After a little experimentation, I found that my hair works best on the medium setting. My inclination was to make it as hot as possible, but that only yielded limp hair.


(Power level two is all it takes. Reading the directions was really handy here.)


It is really easy to use. You pick your heat setting (based on the directions, not merely on what you assume, as I was all wrong), wait a few minutes and then section off your hair. You can use the InStyler to make your hair smooth and straight, create flips, add volume or turn hair under. If a curling iron and a flat iron had a baby that made shiny hair, this would be it. You then place the InStyler as close to the roots as possible and slowly pull it through a section of hair, being careful how you turn the InStyler as you finish each section - creating a flip, a wave, a bend or leaving hair straight. You have to go slower than you do if you are usually a flat iron user.


(Me not in NYC, but at home, after using my InStyler. I have more body then I do when I use the flat iron, but it still looks pretty and not Cholucious at all.)


I used this every day on my recent trip to NYC, where I was outside during a heat wave every day, all day. My hair felt incredibly smooth, the humidity didn't eat it alive and it looked styled, but not super-flat smooth. While I don't have the hair that infomercials are made of, this did do a nice job of taming my Cholucious (what things from Choleria are called in my family) underneath layers. And no, this can't get tangled in your hair. I consider myself to be a top-notch klutz and I couldn't get tangled if I tried. If you're curious, another blogger who does have hair infomercials are made of, got these results.

Have you tried the InStyler? Did it work for you? I know the reviews on this one are mixed, but it worked really well on my hair. Let me know what you think!

*This is a Yiddish expression that is potentially/totally being used incorrectly. You can't find it on a map. That's because in Yiddish it actually means to put a plague or a curse on someone, it's not a place. But not in my family. In my family, it's where ugly lives. Not that you asked, but since I digressed, my favorite made up Yiddish expression is hunta fliffel (masculine) or hunta madel (feminine), words Loxy uses every day to describe odd people. It's a super fun language that should make a full comeback, in my opinion.

This was sent to me for the purposes of review.

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